In this video, Brian interviews Professor Steve Rolandi. Steve has been an adjunct professor at Pace for the past 15 years, and has a wealth of experience working in and around Public Administration.
Interviews are a great way to introduce students to new content and people. With a little preparation and a little postproduction, a basic interview can cover a lot of intellectual ground in a short amount of time. And, as my experience with Steve demonstrates, they are fun to make.
A few notes on this video:
• It is black and white because I liked the “old schoolhouse” background I found to use for the green screen plate (it was black and white).
• Speaking of green screen plates: it’s helpful to choose your background before you shoot. Multiple camera angles and lighting effects add to the complexity here.
• Discerning viewers might notice that our eye-lines are slightly off. This is a result of moving Brian and Steve closer together in post. We were over six feet apart when we shot this interview due to COVID restrictions. This change was possible due to using a green screen.
• I regret that my mic cable is visible and Steve’s shirt collar is bunched up. It’s hard to shoot an interview with no production staff! Our great OLC student staff members were on a summer break.
Thanks for participating in this interview, Steve!
How can Pace create professional video of diverse teaching, learning, and research activities for students on both campuses and online? One strategy could be developing our tools for remote production.
This diagram shows a basic overview of how we can use the tools we already have (laptops, phones, and PTZ cameras) to streamline on-demand broadcasting. 4K cameras can broadcast high-quality (and well-positioned) images while personal laptops and phones broadcast presentations. A remote operator can “live produce” the materials, or the outputs can be automated for regular events.
I recently attended NewTek’s “Enrich Flex/Hybrid Learning” event on emerging broadcasting possibilities powered by AV-over-IP technology. The event covered the following:
Learn how the IP-based lecture capture and micro-broadcasting services connect any room on campus or any meeting room in the business to anywhere in the world. Easy to implement and fully autonomous, CaptureCast a ground-breaking multi-input, multi-room recording and live streaming technology drives active participation, engagement, and experience for remote and hybrid learning.
We currently use NewTek’s TriCaster system in the OLC for capturing, recording, and broadcasting events to Zoom. But NewTek offers other equipment and software (e.g., CaptureCast) that can go further, and help us expand video services to the Pleasantville campus (and beyond!) in interesting ways.
A highlight of the session for me was reflecting on ways that “networked video production” (NVP… my coinage?) is different from other software-driven solutions. Zoom, for example, is organized around the idea of the host running the show. An NVP environment allows much more flexibility for live production with multiple streams.
The end result can be a single stream of content or multiple resources (e.g., different camera views, audio tracks, etc.). NVP can be made incredibly efficient or very sophisticated, and inspires me to think about different ways to package course content for different audiences.
What kind of materials could we create if we had multi-camera set-ups in Pace classrooms? How can a video-driven asynchronous experience be different than the live one?
So, you’re making an instructional video, and you want to make it more visually interesting. A great way to add information and visual appeal to your video starts with using a green screen. In this post, I walk through a couple different ways to think about using one.
Creating Compositions
A great way to approach any instructional video is by thinking about the ways a student may watch and re-watch a video. How big will their screen be? Will they be on a laptop or a phone? Will they be willing to spend 20 straight minutes watching your video, or will they watch it 5 minutes at a time?
Like a traditional movie or show, instructional video should be clear and compelling. Even with lower production values (e.g., fewer explosions, chase scenes, or comedic mishaps), a lecture can be exciting when delivered with enthusiasm. But no amount of enthusiasm will help if the details are confusing.
Consider the design elements that impact your communication, and create a visual composition that orients your audience to your message.
Pace Professor David Dorfman discusses the work of paralegals. In this video, the composition includes a simple (blue) background, the Pace logo, presentation slides, and the speaker.
Take-aways:
• Branding and titling your content reinforces the purpose and intention of a student’s learning goals. While it may seem boring, it does more work than you think!
• Presentation slides should be clear. If you are putting content on your slide, take time to address it. If your slides are wordy, unpack them.
• Page numbers are less important for videos, as you may refer to video timecode later on. But if you want students to refer back to the presentation, – especially if it’s longer than 5 minutes – use page numbers.
Once you’ve established this “master” composition, you can certainly switch to other “scenes” (e.g., presentation-only, speaker-only, or related media). But while editing with cuts can help hold a viewer’s attention, it can be disorienting. I suggest using cuts much more judiciously with instructional video, if at all.
No cuts!? Just one long video?? While it seems counterintuitive to what we often hear about video (i.e, “make it shorter” “no one watches onion video for very long”), students have many tools to watch a long video in a way that works for them. For example, some students may change the playback speed to better match their needs, or have turned on closed captioning. Other students might watch your video a few minutes at a time, and bookmark points to come back to later. These software-driven playback options mean that a simple, great composition can be the best creative option.
Plates and Lighting Effects
Another approach to using a green screen is by using a meaningful background. While one-color backgrounds are easy, they can also be unmemorable. What background sets the scene for your topic? What background would be more memorable or meaningful to your students?
This approach takes a little more planning. Creating a background for a “keyed” shot (i.e., a shot with the green screen successfully removed with software) offers a lot of creative flexibility. In addition to a high-quality image, you want to create a background that works well for your composition. But pay attention to your lighting! Importantly, you will need to light the speaker in the studio in a way that approximates the look of the plate (in this context, the background image is called a “plate”).
Pace Professor Sophie Kaufman created a series of videos on mindfulness. While it was more convenient to shoot her script in the OLC studio, she wanted the video to look like it was shot in her home studio. She used her iPhone to take multiple photographs of her space with different lighting, and OLC staff selected and manipulated an image to create this plate.
Proper lighting in the studio will give you the image you need to composite your plate with your speaker video in postproduction. While it requires some tweaking (and attention to detail), the process is fairly easy to learn and execute.
• 21.5 hours of consultations with faculty in Dyson, Health, and Pace Online.
• 61 videos (650 minutes total) produced and edited for courses in Accounting, Law, and Pace Online.
Updates and Highlights
Summer is a great time to tackle bigger projects. Maybe you want to create new media for a course, or kickstart a production that will evolve over time. This month over a dozen faculty have come to the OLC with new projects in mind, and many productions have already started to take shape.
Professor Sophie Kaufman is creating a series of videos on mindfulness for the College of Health Professions. Her goal is for all Pace students and staff to have access to resources for bringing “mindfulness practice” into our lives.Professor David Dorfman is creating the first resources for Pace’s forthcoming Paralegal Certificate Program. Multiple faculty from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law will ultimately contribute to this new online (asynchronous) program that will support a students and professionals seeking to expand their work in the field of law.
